Sunday

She appeared at the height of dinner service, claiming to be a doctor whose $3,000 Chanel suit was soiled after a waitress spilled soup on her during a recent visit.

Something about the woman struck Bella Tori General Manager Eric Yacker as suspicious, like the dry cleaning bill she presented him. The total was $183.50 but she demanded only $83.50 in cash.

But the upscale Langhorne restaurant had a full dining room, two parties, a packed bar on Wednesday night, so when the woman started getting loud and irate, Yacker gave in.

The next day, he learned his hunch was right — he’d been scammed. He wasn’t the only one either.

Langhorne Police Chief Steve Mawhinney confirmed his department is investigating the incident, which involved a second nearby restaurant the suspect targeted on the same night with the same soup-spilling story and the same threat to cause a scene.

The manager of an Upper Moreland restaurant now claims the same woman with an almost identical story tried to get them to pay a hotel dry cleaning bill claiming a server spilled wine on her Prada suit last week.

Langhorne police described the woman as white, between 5 feet and 5 feet, 5 inches tall, medium-to plus-size figure, dark curly hair and wearing a dress and carrying a large purse. She left in a white Chrysler Sebring convertible with a tan top, police said.

Yacker learned Thursday that the Langhorne Hotel was also scammed Wednesday night by the same woman with the same dry cleaning bill from the Marriott at Glenpointe in Teaneck, N.J.

The woman entered Bella Tori alone about 8 p.m. Wednesday night and immediately demanded to see a manager.

The woman told Yacker she dined at the restaurant recently and a waitress spilled soup on her. She had one of Yacker’s business cards and claimed the waitress told her the restaurant would cover the cleaning bill.

At one point, she even pointed out the waitress she claimed served her, though the employee didn’t recognize the woman, Yacker said.

The bill appeared legitimate. It is dated June 20 from the Marriott, though it identified the suit as “Channel fabric” and stated “replace Channel fabric on the left side of the jacket.” The correct spelling for the famous French fashion house is Chanel.

The named “Dr. Shea” appeared on the bill and the woman claimed she was an orthopedic surgeon, Yacker said. She even used medical lingo while talking on a cellphone, he said.

Initially, Yacker told the woman his accounting people weren’t available and he couldn’t pay her cash.

The offer to mail her a check generated a threat to make the restaurant pay the whole cleaning bill, he added.

The woman claimed she lived in Princeton and didn’t want to make a return trip. As her voice became louder and angrier, Yacker made an executive decision to pay her to get her to leave.

“She literally couldn’t have picked a better night or time to do it,” Yacker said, adding, “There is no way these are the only two places.”

When he got home Wednesday night, Yacker told his wife he thought he had been scammed. The next day, a housekeeper’s find in the restaurant’s bathroom confirmed it for him.

The cleaning woman told him she found a wallet in the bathroom hidden behind a wicker basket containing towels. When Yacker opened it, he learned it belonged to the hostess that was working the night before — when the angry doctor was there.

When he spoke to the hostess, she told the manager that her wallet was stolen and she remembered that the angry doctor had asked her where the restrooms were located.

Shortly after speaking to the hostess, Yacker got a call from his daughter. She told him her friend works at the Langhorne Hotel where the same woman pulled the same dry cleaning bill scam the same night.

“Now, I know I got scammed,” he said.

Before hitting Bella Tori, the same woman and a male accomplice, who stayed in the car, stopped at the Langhorne Hotel with the same story.

She ate at the restaurant three weeks before and the wait staff spilled soup on her designer suit.

She spoke to a manager who assured her that the cleaning bill would be covered.

The woman presented the hostess with the same Marriott receipt for the cleaning of her “Channel” suit, said Tammy Asta, one of the hotel’s co-owners, who was immediately suspicious.

“I didn’t hear anything about it, and usually when someone spills something we hear about it,” she said. Asta called the other co-owners, including her husband and asked other employees. No one remembered anyone spilling anything.

When Asta’s husband asked the woman what kind of soup was spilled, the woman changed her story. The server spilled her entree, not her soup, she claimed.

The questions apparently made the woman antsy. She started getting loud.

So Asta decided to follow the customer-is-always-right rule. Her husband wrote the woman a check for $83.50, and she left.

“It was kind of crazy,” Asta added. “I wonder how many other places she hit around here?”

Jessica Cagle believes the answer is at least three.

Cagel, a manager at the Brick House Tavern and Tap on Route 611 in Upper Moreland, said Saturday that a woman matching the suspect’s description — and story line — tried to get reimbursed for an $82 dry cleaning bill on July 21.

The woman claimed she was a doctor, Cagle said. She claimed to have attended a luncheon at the restaurant a few weeks earlier and that a wait staff member spilled red wine on her Prada suit.

She dropped the name of the restaurant’s director of operations, claimed they were old friends and that he promised to cover her cleaning bill, Cagle said.

She presented the manager with a dry cleaning receipt dated June 20 for a “Dr. Verklin” from a Hampton Inn in Bordentown, N.J.

But the bill looked strange, Cagle said. For one, the designer’s name was spelled “Proda” not Prada.

At the top was a handwritten note “Damaged at restaurant;” the total listed $12 to clean a suit and at the bottom was written “Proda fabric $70.” The bill also had a handwritten notation, “Send out to tailor” and “Replace Proda fabric damaged on suit @ restaurant.”

Normally in this situation, Cagle said the director would give the customer one of his signed business cards and alert staff to expect a dry cleaning bill. But none of the staff had heard anything about a bill.

So Cagle interrupted her boss’s vacation with the story. He had no clue what she was talking about, either.

“He said, ‘I have absolutely no idea who this person is,’” Cagle said.

So the manager returned to the hostess stand where the suspect was waiting. She didn’t tell the woman she called her boss, but explained that her boss was on vacation. She asked her to leave a business card, promising to contact her when he returned.

At that point the woman started getting upset, Cagle said. She claimed she had the director’s business card, but left it at home.

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